Portraits of Murder (1988) by Alfred Hitchcock

Author:Alfred Hitchcock [Hitchcock, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

STANLEY ABBOTT

A Quiet Backwater

I had been wandering about Malaya for many months, picking up material for a book I had in mind, when suddenly I felt sick of it all. I couldn’t wait to get away from the steam-sodden heat and hot-spiced native food. Even the brilliant eye-shattering colors and lush greenery which at first had seemed so exciting and attractive had become unbearable.

I needed a change. I longed for the crispness of northern California in the fall.

To catch the small coastal steamer that sails twice a month for Singapore I took a native prahu down river to Tenah Solor. It was little more than a village with several hundred Malays, Dyaks, and the inevitable Chinese quarter, clustered together close by the river; higher up, the bungalows of the white population were scattered around an immense padang. It looked like a well-kept English village green, except for the tall cassias which surrounded it and shaded the bungalows.

I had nearly a week to wait and the thought of spending it in this sleepy backwater, which looked as if it hadn’t changed in a century, appalled me. I settled in for a boring stay in a bungalow belonging to the district officer, Jeff Hawkins.

Hawkins was a bachelor and he had offered to put me up. He was very British and military-looking in khaki shirt and shorts, and we got on well together. During the day he had his job to look after. In the evenings we met on the verandah where the houseboy set out the drinks. After a couple of gin slings, if we felt like it, we’d walk over to the club to find a game of bridge.

The club was a converted bungalow and there were usually a few planters there who had driven in with their wives to have a drink. It was here one evening that Jeff Hawkins introduced me to the Thorntons and asked them if they’d like to make up a game. Harry Thornton said he would but his wife didn’t play. She was just about to leave, but while Jeff went off to hunt up a fourth she stayed and talked with me. I was glad she did, for her husband had very little to say, and it had been a long time since I’d set eyes on such a lovely girl.

Harry Thornton had an intelligent-looking face, but a couple of deeply etched furrows at the corners of his mouth gave him a bitter look. Though what he had to be bitter about, with such a charming wife, I could hardly imagine.

Most of the women I’d met made the climate and the distance from civilization an excuse to let themselves go. But Julia was an exception. Her makeup was immaculate, and the coloring of her dark blue eyes and soft dark hair was set off to perfection by a pink linen dress.

She told me they’d been there about ten years. They owned their own rubber plantation and, now that there was no longer trouble from Communist guerillas, all was going well.

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